The mother of Hugh Grant's daughter received a barrage of threatening phone calls while the actor was appearing on Question Time to talk about the closure of the News of the World, the lawyer acting for victims of alleged press intrusion has claimed at the Leveson inquiry.

David Sherborne, who represents the woman as well as speaking on behalf of 51 alleged victims of press intrusion at the Leveson inquiry, told the high court she was too stressed at the time to call the police.

Sherborne said that "Whilst Mr Grant was appearing on Question Time, discussing the closure of the NoW, Rupert Murdoch and press standards generally, she received a barrage of telephone calls from a withheld number from someone who managed to get it from somewhere, and when they finally answered she was threatened in the most menacing terms, which should reverberate around this inquiry: 'Tell Hugh Grant he must shut the fuck up'. Unsurprisingly she was too stressed to call the police."

The barrister also claimed that Tinglan Hong's mother was almost run over by paparazzi in the weeks after Grant became one of the most prominent critics of News International.

He told Lord Justice Leveson that the incidents had been reported to the Metropolitan police on the third day of the judicial inquiry into phone hacking and media standards on Wednesday.

Near the end of a lengthy diatribe against tabloid press ethics and behaviour, the lawyer said he had secured an emergency injunction on behalf of the mother of Hugh Grant's child. Sherborne claimed the real reason for her injunction is that she has received threats because the father of child has spoken out against the press.

Grant appeared on Question Time on 7 July to discuss phone hacking. On the same day News International announced the closure the News of the World following the revelation that the paper had accessed the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler.

Leveson told Sherborne he had presented one side of alleged press intrusion "very graphically" and he wanted to be satisfied he has a full picture of the incidents the QC made claims about.

Sherborne also told the inquiry that the parents of Madeleine McCann "begged for restraint" from blatant intrusion into their private lives by the News of the World.

He claimed that the now-defunct tabloid newspaper published Kate McCann's private letters to her missing daughter without consent and even before her husband Gerry had seen them.

Charlotte Church will also give evidence as a core participant to the inquiry.

Sherborne told the high court that Church had been hounded incessantly by photographers looking for a scoop – and as recently as a week ago was the subject of a "complete fabrication" published in one unnamed newspaper.

He claimed that Church's mother attempted suicide shortly before the News of the World published a story in 2005 alleging that her father was having an affair. "This is the real, brutally real impact this kind of journalism has," Sherborne said.

Earlier, the inquiry heard how Max Mosley believed that the News of the World's invasion of his privacy contributed to the suicide of his son.

The original article stated Church's mother attempted suicide shortly after the News of the World published a story in 2005 alleging that her father was having an affair. This has been amended and now states Church's mother attempted suicide shortly before the News of the World published a story in 2005.

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